Clark's Bakery History, by Margaret Clark

My mom wrote this narrative about our family's bakery, in response to a request from someone in Juneau.

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In June 1957 Bob Clark, his wife Margaret, and Daughter Linda flew to Juneau to venture into a new life of running a bakery, and living in Alaska. Margaret’s Father and Mother had started Ivan’s Bakery in a little Quonset hut down under the Douglas bridge. By the time our family got there, they had moved into an old building located in the heart of the city on Franklin Street.

Because Margaret’s father, Ivan had serious eye problems, he wanted to go to Seattle for surgery, and to not return to the bakery. He wanted Bob to buy and run the bakery. That was a nice offer, but Bob had no money with which to buy the shop. They made a verbal contract for Bob to work for a year, drawing no pay, and that would go for his down payment on the bakery. Margaret had started a job with Northern Commercial Company, and was getting a whopping $350 a month. They had left Salem, Oregon, leaving their house with a renter, and leaving their first new car parked, so there were debts to meet each month in Oregon. When Bob agreed to go to Juneau, the plan was for him to work a year for Ivan and then Bob and his family would go back to Oregon. Now, things changed quickly when the offer to buy the shop was on the table.

The Clark family moved into a tiny apartment which was located up over the Madsen’s Fishing Supply Company. The rent was $100 a month. It had only one bedroom, so Linda would go to bed in the bedroom, and soon her Dad would also go to bed because he was up at 4 a.m. to go to work. He had no car, so had to walk to work. When it was time for Margaret to go to bed, the davenport was made into a bed, and she would carry Linda out to that bed for the rest of the night. It was hard living, and we did not even have a hamburger out for an entire year, because money was scarce.

After a year of frugal living, it was time for Bob to take over the shop, and for Ivan to leave town for adventures of his own. The money was still not enough to buy the shop, and one day one of the local salesmen came into the shop and heard the story. He told Bob to take off his apron and come with him. Down the street they went to the 1st National Bank. The salesman co-signed for Bob to get the money he needed to buy the shop. What a blessing this was.

It was very humorous because at the end of the first day there was still no money in the bank, and Bob would take whatever money was in the cash register to go over to the Dock and get a sack of flour, and a sack of sugar to be open for business the next day. That went on for quite awhile before Bob had his feet on the ground and could afford to charge things that were needed.

This bakery building housed Ivan’s Bakery for about 5 years, before Sim McKinnon, who owned the building, decided to sell it. Bob’s and his family lived upstairs over that little building, so this was a major upset. The old building had been a House of Ill Repute in days past, and was not the best place to live, but it was good to be right on the site of the bakery. Margaret continued to work for North Commercial, for Elwyn Pym, hurrying home at the end of each day to help close up the shop, clean the cases etc. She also got up early enough to fry and glaze the donuts before she went to work at her other job.

Soon Nick Bavard, whose grocery store was across the street from the Bakery, decided that he wanted to rent the old store building. Bob took that project on, making many alterations in the old grocery so that the bakery could be housed there . Friends would come every evening and help us paint, lay floors, and do whatever was needed that day. Margaret’s brother, Ivan Womack was always there to help too.

This was a lovely big shop with a counter with about 12 stools where hamburgers or other sandwiches were served. Of course many came in just to eat some of the delicious Danish Pastry or donuts that Bob always provided. That building was located on the edge of the alley next to George’s Gift Shop. When Bob moved the business across the street, South Franklin Street was closed for most of the day while the moving company rolled his huge oven across the street. They took out the big windows to bring it into the building. Now the bakery became Clark’s Bakery and Coffee Bar.

Soon a second oven was added to that business as it grew too big for one oven to handle. It was a hard job because Bob cold find no one qualified to work for him. Bakers were not plentiful in Juneau.

After another 5 years, Nick Bavard decided to sell the building in which the bakery was housed. At that time there was a Spudnut Shop located just about 4 doors from us, and he was going to close his business, so Bob purchased that business, and moved his bakery/lunch counter to that location. This meant another huge move, and another remodeling job.

After moving in there, the business continued to be successful until about 1967 when the opportunity to sell it to a young man who had been in Juneau to work for Bob in previous years. He ran the business for awhile before moving it to the Foodland shopping area.

Reading Log, December 2010 through May 2011

My reading has been chaotic the last few months. I've read everything from sci-fi, non-fiction, mystery, to detective and literary fiction. I've read old and new. I've read long and short.

The Multiplex Man, James P. Hogan
This sci-fi novel has an Orwellian 1984 feel to it. Government, in the name of environmental control, has gone off the deep end. Personal freedoms have vanished, and scientific technology has made possible the impossible. The main character, Richard Jarrow, wakes one day to find he has lost all memory of the past six months and is living in someone else’s body. Through an amazing number of twists and turns, culminating in a surprise ending, the mystery is solved.

Admittedly, I’m not a sci-fi fan, and this is the only Hogan book I’ve read. I can say is that the story did keep me turning pages and curious to the very end. I would probably give Hogan another try in one of those rare moments when I decide to read another sci-fi book.

These Things Hidden, Heather Gudenkauf
I chose this book because I so enjoyed The Weight of Silence, by the same author. I was disappointed in this one, however. The book was dark and lacked the redeeming themes of hope and love found in The Weight of Silence.

The book revolves around the lives of four women, all connected in unique ways to a small child named Joshua. Although I usually enjoy a story revealed from various voices and perspectives, I found this particular novel to be disjointed and lacking flow. The surprising revelation found near the end of the novel, which depended upon the coming-together of the four women felt, to me, contrived rather than simply coincidental.

Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal, Conor Grennan
It’s nice to read a biographical book where both the author and those he touched had such life-changing experiences. Conor Grennan set off on a round-the-world journey of fun and adventure. Along the way, he planned a brief volunteer stop at The Little Princes Children’s Home, in Nepal. Admittedly, this mission was more to impress others than it was altruistic. But his time at Little Princes changed his heart and the course of his life. This book and the author, himself, deserve a “thumbs up.”



Rex: A Mother, Her Autistic Child, and the Music that Transformed Their Lives, Cathleen Lewis
This is the story of Rex, an autistic musical savant, as told by his mother. Rex is truly a remarkable individual, and the story is interesting. I would, however, have preferred more details about Rex and his journey and less about his mother’s personal emotions and thoughts. None the less, the reader has to give credit to the amazing perseverance demonstrated by his mother, the author, Cathleen Lewis. I do think that this would be an especially encouraging read for any parent dealing with a child with special needs.


Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
Jacob Jankoski, the main character of this novel, leaves school before sitting for the exam to become a certified veterinarian, when his parents are tragically killed in an accident. He is left homeless and penniless, and is grateful to be hired on by a traveling circus as their vet (even without his papers). I loved how the author took the reader back and forth between Jacob’s circus days and his senior years, living in an assisted care facility.

This book is a life story, a love story, a story of overcoming, and a story of insight into the frustrations of aging. I won’t spoil the ending, but I can tell you that it left me with a big smile on my face.

I understand Water for Elephants has been made into a movie, but I’m not sure I want to see it. I can’t imagine how the movie could do a better job than the book of telling the story. Why risk being disappointed?

The Lincoln Lawyer: A Novel, Michael Connelly
If you like lawyer novels, this one is worth your time. Don’t let the title fool you, though; it has nothing to do with Abraham Lincoln. The Lincoln in the title refers to the Lincoln town car the main character, Mick Haller, uses as his transportation and traveling office.

In this story, Haller, a defense attorney, finds himself in an almost impossibly complex set of circumstances that test his ethics and put his life, and the lives of friends and family, on the line.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, F. Scott Fitzgerald
I know. This short story is a classic. They even made a movie out of it. But I found it disappointing. Firtgerald’s character, Benjamin Button, is born a doddering old man and begins growing younger from that day forward, until, decades later, he becomes a helpless infant. Although the plot has potential, I felt that the characters, most notably Benjamin, himself, were flat. They didn’t inspire any emotional connection with me, as the reader, and I have to admit to being a bit bored as I read through the story.




Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
The story opens in 1952, when Kathy, Ruth and Tommy are students, and have been since their earliest years, at Hailsham, a seemingly idyllic country boarding school. Their relationship as young adults, after leaving Hailsham, remains entwined, but fraught with emotional drama. Throughout the book, the Hailsham students make references to their destiny and speak using obscure terms, leaving the reader unsure and searching for clues to their fate.

As the story progresses, the reader gradually comes to a chilling realization. This novel is both depressing and thought-provoking. I still don't know how I feel about this book. It's still very fresh in my mind. Maybe after some time, I'll be able to make a determination. For now -- it gets neither a thumbs-up nor a thumbs-down from me.

This Evening's Sun

This will be the last one. I promise. But the sun was even more RED than last evening. (The blurry dark area at the bottom is the top of our backyard fence.)

Cough Cough Cough

For the past four days, Albuquerque has been smothered in a thick blanket of smoke, coming from the massive Arizona fires near the AZ/NM border. Around noon today I was hopeful, as it began to clear, and we saw blue sky. But this evening, when the wind picked up again, it became worse than ever.

Dan and I are fortunate to have air conditioning, which filters most of the smoke from the air we are breathing indoors. The majority of houses in Albuquerque are cooled with evaporative coolers (known colloquially as "swamp coolers). There have been continuous radio announcements telling folks NOT to use swamp coolers, as they will just fill their homes with the smoky air. The high temperatures have been in the nineties lately, so that's a major concern for those people. I really don't know how people with chronic respiratory problems are making it, since even those of us with healthy lungs are coughing.

Here's a picture of the sun, filtered by the smoke this evening, taken from our back yard. It looks like a red rubber ball.



That red sunlight causes everything to have an orange cast. This is what it looked like looking north from our back door (no Photoshop color enhancement on any of these photos).



And here is a photo of Sandia Peak, from our deck. Believe me, there is a big mountain behind that smoke!



Here's a picture sans-smoke, taken on an earlier date from about the same perspective as the one above.